Lawrence Paper Company

Lawrence Paper Company was my favorite trip we went on, although it probably had on of the more boring products. LPC make corrugated cardboard and it's related things, like displays and what not.

They bring in paper in bulk, and by bulk I mean up to 8,000 pound rolls of paper. These were the biggest rolls of paper I had ever seen! They take this paper and put it in a machine that treats the paper with steam to loosen it up, then it coats the paper in a "custom" glue, then it molds and applies a second, or third, or fourth, depending on the type of cardboard needed, layer of paper that makes the wrinkled inside of the cardboard, then another layer that is the other side. That's it, its just cardbaord, however the process is all done at 400 feet per minute, which is blazing!

The best part is the glue, this is no Elmer's glue, no Gorilla glue, no, not even SUPER glue, its just water and flower and a keeping agent. That's it. It's essentially gravy. Literally they have giant 2-4 ton bags of white flower that they mix with warm water. So the next time that you go and look at a cardboard display or a cardboard box, remember that it's probably edible as long as it isn't painted, which even then is non-toxic.

LPC also prints and assembles the displays, even filling them sometimes. Printing is a normal process with 8 primary colors that creates a palette of thousands of colors that can be exactly matched to a found color that the buyer wants.